Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Sandwich on August 03, 2003, 07:52:11 am
-
What's being done about this, anything? Everyone's pretty much agreed that things don't look as big as they should. Has anybody found the render angle/lens/whatever that needs to be tweaked to change this?
I want a ginormous 1.6 km Star Destroyer!!!
-
I've looked into it, it initaly seems to do the trick but as you play things seem to be not right
-
That would be awesome. I was thinking something like this would be great... a 300 meter long cruiser simply does not look 300 meters long.
-
if you change the FOV settings, it either looks like a fisheye (increase), or it looks like you aren't moving (decrease)
-
You know, I really don't think that the ships-dont-look-as-big-as-they-are problem has anything to do with distortion (or lack thereof) of the viewpoint. I think it's simply that, as you're flying along the ship, there are few reference points, and so it looks like you're barely moving. If the ships had a lot more surface detail, or much more detailed textures, it'd probably feel quite a bit bigger.
Giving points of reference is the reason why you see movement streaks of little dust and such from your cockpit: if you didn't no matter how you moved through space, you'd feel like you weren't moving at all. More "realistic" sims dispense with this fake debris stuff, but usually compensate by making a 3d hud grid or something similar (c.f. M.I.S.C.).
Here's an experiment: try doubling or tripling the uv scale of the textures of a capship, then see if it feels longer when you fly against it. It'll probably be much uglier at a distance, because the detail is lost in all the texture tile repetition, but feel bigger up close.
Keep in mind too that your ship is moving pretty fast as well, so of course you can close very large distances quickly, making everything feel smaller.
Perhaps bump mapping texture surfaces might be a way to add points of reference to a ship, and make them feel bigger. Just a wild guess.
-
I don't agree. take the Xwing series ( even the very old first one ). the ships in those games went very fast, the capships were scaled right, and they does look much bigger than in FS2.
-
Originally posted by PhReAk
if you change the FOV settings, it either looks like a fisheye (increase), or it looks like you aren't moving (decrease)
And? When you're trying to cover 4 miles it should seem like it takes you a while to get there. I can live with a fov modification especially if it can be made optional.
-
you know things could look small becase you're flying about in a 40 meter long fighter...
-
Originally posted by Venom
I don't agree. take the Xwing series ( even the very old first one ). the ships in those games went very fast, the capships were scaled right, and they does look much bigger than in FS2.
Xwing is an excellent example. Also take a look at Tachyon:The Fringe.
-
*ignores part of thread dealing with "is it worth it?"*
Originally posted by Bobboau
I've looked into it, it initaly seems to do the trick but as you play things seem to be not right
Bob, could you code it in as a command-line option, so we can play around with it and see what happens? Say, something where you specify a number in whatever range is valid (?)..... could you?
-
Originally posted by FrancisA
If the ships had a lot more surface detail, or much more detailed textures, it'd probably feel quite a bit bigger.
I don't think so, here are some examples with the texture density increased 4 times, also note that these images were taken with 4x AA and 8x Anisotropic Filtering to reduce the extreme texture crawling, (that's also the reason why the hud anis are screwed up).
The Colossus as a whole, looks like crap but does help a bit:
(http://mitglied.lycos.de/elgore/root/pictures/scaleref00.jpg)
It seems as if I'm standing right in front of this turret which might be say about 1,8m tall:
(http://mitglied.lycos.de/elgore/root/pictures/scaleref01.jpg)
Nope... it's more like 100m away and as big as a house:
(http://mitglied.lycos.de/elgore/root/pictures/scaleref02.jpg)
This radar dish might fit into my cockpit:
(http://mitglied.lycos.de/elgore/root/pictures/scaleref03.jpg)
Or not...
(http://mitglied.lycos.de/elgore/root/pictures/scaleref04.jpg)
-
(http://smilies.crowd9.com/cwm/cwm/puke.gif)
-
Me and sandy did this once, I had a pic of my myrm next to a deimos like that, and everyone thought it was a new deimos mod,(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/us/images/mods/snipes/easiertosee.jpg)
-
Ok, we are NOT talking about increasing the texture resolution, adding bump-mapping (which would be nice, but it's besides the point), or any other hare-brained scheme like that.
FOV/perspective/lens adjustment. Nothing more, nothing less.
-
ah, how many times did I bring that discussion, again?
Bob, could you post pics with the modified FOV so we can see by ourselves?
-
Originally posted by Venom
ah, how many times did I bring that discussion, again?
Yeah, but I can ban 'em if they don't cooperate. :p ;)
-
I thought it was already said that there was going to be a command line about this, or I'm wrong?
eh, it's about the 4th time this discussions started:)
Bob, I'd like to see those pics too, I'm really curious:)
-
When using X-wing examples, remmeber that in X-wing your velocity isn't shown as any existing measure. Thus, you could very well be moving a lot slower than your displayed speed might seem to warrant. Sure, 120 sounds like it's pretty fast, but what exactly *is* 120 MGLT? But this can't be done in FS2, since the measure for speed is meters per second, and so if you're moving too fast or too slow compared to what's displayed, it's very easy to notice.
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
you know things could look small becase you're flying about in a 40 meter long fighter...
BOB SPEAKS THE TRUTH lol... hell if we guys keep making uber sized ships that can be piloted, of course were gonna have a BIG POV.
but i thinks also its the way the line of site is, the camera in some wierd way makes everything big, almost as if the cameras on the NOSE of the fighter/ship, rather than from the cockpit.either that or could someone simulate this "MAKE A SHIP" bigger effect by leaning close to something, when ur a few inches, feet back from something your looking at (where ur line of sight is coming from), it looks in perspective (IE when you zoom out a few meters, the ship now does look small, and the cap looks its right size), but if ur in cockpit (if u move closer to what your suppose to be looking at, aka the hud) when ur closer to the hud, things look bigger.
IN FS2 when were in HUD 1st person mode, its almost as if were all huntching forward staring right thru the hud out the rest of the universe. thus an optical illusion that were not really so small. if the hud was say, made smaller, more in the center of the screen, where as everything is now on the far outside, or maybe arranged in a way to make the illusion of acutal size to a ship, then maybe this effectcould be done.
-
For those who have 3ds max the perspective in freespace is almost like taking the perspective view and really flattening it out.
-
Originally posted by deep_eyes
BOB SPEAKS THE TRUTH lol... hell if we guys keep making uber sized ships that can be piloted, of course were gonna have a BIG POV.
Has nothing to do - table-hack the Colossus to be player-flyable - the viewpoint doesn't change.
Originally posted by Deepblue
For those who have 3ds max the perspective in freespace is almost like taking the perspective view and really flattening it out.
This is essentially the root of the issue... the lens angle. Anyone recall in Fellowship of the Ring (#1), where Frodo looks down the path and yells at everyone to get off the road? The wind then starts blowing down the path, and the camera lens changes drastically, from what to what I don't know, but it's something like from 28 (wide) to 150+ (tele)... or perhaps the reverese. Anyway, that's the kind of change we want to see in-game.
-
Originally posted by Deepblue
For those who have 3ds max the perspective in freespace is almost like taking the perspective view and really flattening it out.
then, I can make things look huge in max, w/o having the FOV limited... where's the damn problem?
Btw, I experimented a lot, in max. and you seem to not like fishview. well I tell you, if set up right ( not exagerated ala alien3 ), it's just great. that makes you feel go much faster than with your plain flat view ( on the sides of the screen, there's an effect of acceleration ), while it remains easy to aim ( the center of the screen remains normal ). Some games used that trick, like the ( otherwise plain ) Taxi game, or Eve online.
-
I think in q3 is possible to change the fov with the config.
I saw some in game shots with fov modified, and in some of them things were looking wrong, but this was caused by the fov enlarged to see a wider area, so the things that in real world should be at your sides, were at the borders of the monitor, generating a strange effect, expecially during movements, like when you read a newspaper with a lens.
The point is that we don't want to enlarge the fov, but to reduce it, so the question remains: are those weird effects related to the engine that can't handle without problems different fovs, or simply it looks different and unusual? I dare the first thing from what bob said, but I'd like to see some pics:)
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
Has nothing to do - table-hack the Colossus to be player-flyable - the viewpoint doesn't change.
That's right, despite you are sitting in an Ursa, or the Colossus, you still have the same sight of view.
And of course it is a point how close you are sitting to the window. :cool:
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
I want a ginormous 1.6 km Star Destroyer!!!
oh...
and I'd like to see a Star destroyer that looks like a Star destroyer :devil:
-
Originally posted by KARMA
oh...
and I'd like to see a Star destroyer that looks like a Star destroyer :devil:
Why? Isn't SW-C's StarDest looking like a Star destroyer? or the one of XWA?
-
Vilkacis' post comparing the external camera view of a turret with the cockpit view really hit it home for me. I didn't think that the problem could possibly _just_ be the cockpit camera, but I guess it is. I completely misdiagnosed the problem.
It looks like the cockpit camera has collapsed depth, like looking through a telephoto lens. I don't think that's _entirely_ a function of fov, and unless it's something bigger than 90, I'd hesitate to make it smaller.
There must be some reason why Volition did that skewing of the camera, though, because they did try to make massive looking ships a unique point of the game. Perhaps combat feels more distant and less involving? Or you never get close enough to see any detail on fighters?
Is it possible to exagerate distances without playing with fov? Like maybe applying some scalar factor to vertices' Z, which gets bigger the further it is from the camera? Altering geometry in-game is a pretty violent thing to do, though.
I guess I should just wait and see what results others get from playing with the camera.
-
Originally posted by FrancisA
There must be some reason why Volition did that skewing of the camera, though, because they did try to make massive looking ships a unique point of the game. Perhaps combat feels more distant and less involving? Or you never get close enough to see any detail on fighters?
If I remember correctly it was done so that you could see more of the battlefield without having to use the pov-hat on your joystick.
What you can see is supposed to be what you could see by turning your head slightly left or right.
-
Or maybe the source coders can play around with the scales. Say instead of having something 300 long you could scale it say by 3 and still call it 300 long.
Example:
_________
_________
300
into
_____________________________
_____________________________
300(900)
-
No no no... view render change or nothing...I won't have any scale hacks in this.
If we could duplicate the FOV/lens mm/whatever of XWA, it'd be perfect.
-
It'll be extremely noticable if the scale is changed. If you suddenly take a minute to fly the length of an orion at 100ms instead of the 20secs it's supposed to take at that speed, you notice something is wrong. As I touched upon a bit earlier, that's the advantage for the x-wing games in having an speed measure that's not exactly known, they can toy around with how fast you move all they like and you won't be able to calculate if you're going too fast or not ;)
-
I am DAMN sure it wont take any long to fly, its not altering the speed just what it LOOKS like :hopping:
and if altering the view does change the speed then I really need to learn some and forget some physics :lol:
-
My mistake, should have specified it - My reply was to Deepblue's suggestion about making everything 3x as big instead of playing with the view.
-
And the same thing would be applied to the speed making it all balenced. Velocity mod anyone?
-
Originally posted by Exarch
It'll be extremely noticable if the scale is changed. If you suddenly take a minute to fly the length of an orion at 100ms instead of the 20secs it's supposed to take at that speed, you notice something is wrong. As I touched upon a bit earlier, that's the advantage for the x-wing games in having an speed measure that's not exactly known, they can toy around with how fast you move all they like and you won't be able to calculate if you're going too fast or not ;)
While we're at it did you ever notice that FS ship are going awfully slow in comparison to today's craft. I mean 90ms max speed, that's not even mach 1.
-
Originally posted by Deepblue
Velocity mod anyone?
-
Yeah they definitely do go slow. But I always just imagine it's a relative velocity and otherwise ignore it ;) sorta like when you see a space shuttle placing a satelite into orbit - they're only moving at 5ms compared to each other after release, but they're actually moving at more like 10.000 compared to a spot on earth.
-
Besides, simply multiplying size factors will increase the size of the fighters and bombers as well :( It is definately the viewing angle that is at fault, it's wide-angle, and, I think, slightly zoomed, I think this is because, in part, of the fact that even the large 30m fighters would appear quite small at moderate distances if the FOV were set to the correct level.
Flipside :)
-
Originally posted by Exarch
Yeah they definitely do go slow. But I always just imagine it's a relative velocity and otherwise ignore it ;) sorta like when you see a space shuttle placing a satelite into orbit - they're only moving at 5ms compared to each other after release, but they're actually moving at more like 10.000 compared to a spot on earth.
yeah, but make one of them turn around, and it won't be the same anymore ;)
Flipside: fighters and bombers look small too. they'er at least 20 meters long. do you really think that if you were to collide with such big things, they wouldn't fill completly your forward view?
when I play FS2, I feel like fighting remote controled toys, not the real thing :doubt:
-
Originally posted by Flipside
I think this is because, in part, of the fact that even the large 30m fighters would appear quite small at moderate distances if the FOV were set to the correct level.
Actually I'd imagine that resetting the fov to a more accurate number would probably make fighters bigger when close up and remain a similar size or slightly larger when further away.
-
Yes, they would, sorry, it's a hot day here, my brain is malfuntioning a bit ;) It also means that being close to capital ships will often involve (more than normal) staring at a large low polygon area with a few pixels to share amongst it for textures. I might be able to increase the polyres and texture sizes for all the ships in FS2, I have the neccesary stuff (though converting the files back to POF's could be a real pain) though it will not be 100% perfect with the texture enhancements, it might well provide an improvement on what is available now :D
Flipside
-
Back on-topic... is anyone going to give us an option to mess around with? I'd be very appreciative... :D
-
It's true about the fighters - they look like toys you could pcik up in one hand. But something else has occured to me. If I collide with a turret such as the one in the pictures above, it barely stretches outside the top and bottom of my screen. The impression one gets is that it cannot be hyge since here I am crashing in to it when it's not more than double the size of my fighter. Presumably, the collision detection is kicking in when I'm several tens of meters away from the colidee - that piccy earlier looks to have been taken not far at all from a collision with the Colossus' turret.
I realsie that what I'm asking here to have the bounding boxes and collision detection redrawn skin-tight to ships' hulls, and that'd be a bastard to code. But maybe this is where part of the scale problem lies?
-
cheack mos test this thread, the exe has debug code to alow you to play with the fov
-
Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Presumably, the collision detection is kicking in when I'm several tens of meters away from the colidee - that piccy earlier looks to have been taken not far at all from a collision with the Colossus' turret.
No, the collision detection works properly you'll run into the turret at point blank, by that time your whole screen is filled by the turret but it still appears not as big as it really is.
-
Originally posted by diamondgeezer
It's true about the fighters - they look like toys you could pcik up in one hand. But something else has occured to me. If I collide with a turret such as the one in the pictures above, it barely stretches outside the top and bottom of my screen. The impression one gets is that it cannot be hyge since here I am crashing in to it when it's not more than double the size of my fighter. Presumably, the collision detection is kicking in when I'm several tens of meters away from the colidee - that piccy earlier looks to have been taken not far at all from a collision with the Colossus' turret.
I realsie that what I'm asking here to have the bounding boxes and collision detection redrawn skin-tight to ships' hulls, and that'd be a bastard to code. But maybe this is where part of the scale problem lies?
nah, collisions are fine. go in external view and go against your turret, you'll see your ship bounce directly on it ( plus who never saw his wingmen doing that? :doubt: ).
and, as far as I know, there's no collision box ( did anybody ever did one for one of his modded ships? nope ), the ship mesh itself is used for that ( unlike, say, Iwar2 ). I wonder if the camera isn't put right behind our ship, in fact, even in cockpit view...
-
the collision points are more often inside the mesh rather than outside (expecially if you have spikes, wings, barrels etc and if you go extremely slow or just rotate staying still). I don't know if fs2 decide when you collide using directly the mesh (althought I've noticed sometimes collision differnces between same models but different convertors), but I don't think it has something to do with FOV.
The only things I can think of, that could be connected with FOV, are how much you see and, maybe, the resolution. For example in xwa iirc if you change resolution the FOV change.
-
Originally posted by KARMA
the collision points are more often inside the mesh rather than outside (expecially if you have spikes, wings, barrels etc and if you go extremely slow or just rotate staying still).
That's just calculation inacurracy, I suppose. would take to much resources to deal with 100% perfect collision. while it might be needed to have that in, say, a FPS, you don't need perfect collision control in a space shooter. FS2 collision is already good enough ( it's mod friendly, don't have to create collision box and all )
-
Originally posted by Venom
and, as far as I know, there's no collision box ( did anybody ever did one for one of his modded ships? nope ), the ship mesh itself is used for that ( unlike, say, Iwar2 ).
Actually, AFAIK the collision boxes are calculated automatically by PCS.
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
Actually, AFAIK the collision boxes are calculated automatically by PCS.
well, then they use the exact geometry of the ship, so it's the same.
-
well it depend by how much accurate the boxes are .
if it is the bounding box thing, that you can see in the new pcs, I remember models converted with cob2fs2 or older versions of pcs as little inaccurate.
-
Originally posted by Venom
nah, collisions are fine. go in external view and go against your turret, you'll see your ship bounce directly on it ( plus who never saw his wingmen doing that? :doubt: ).
and, as far as I know, there's no collision box ( did anybody ever did one for one of his modded ships? nope ), the ship mesh itself is used for that ( unlike, say, Iwar2 ). I wonder if the camera isn't put right behind our ship, in fact, even in cockpit view...
Hey, I like the Iwar2 collision hull set up. It requires an extra step for the mod maker, but you get a more accurate collision model and it's relatively fast.
-
can't be more accurate than the hull mesh itself, honestly.
-
I think the bounding boxes in PCS have to do with something else, because even the old inacurate ones still produced impacts only against the ships hull. It may be that the game only applies the collision detection when two objects occupy the same area (as defined by the bounding boxes) so that it is not always checking for impacts between distant objects. I in no way know this to be true, but I have seen several incedents that could be caused by this setup, and it would explain some of the weird things that ships using the old bounding boxes have done.
-
M'kay, I have no idea how we got on to bounding boxes, but if someone would start a new topic on the subject, I'll gladly move all the relevant posts into there. *hint hint*
So Bobboau, what did you mean when you said "cheack mos test this thread, the exe has debug code to alow you to play with the fov" ?
-
Probably means this:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,16586.0.html
-
we were talking about another thing since there already is another thread about fov and clipping.
if it will end to a successful result, as it seems, it will probably be the major advancement to fs2 from the scp;7
-
I posted that at like 4:30 am, so I may have been slightly slured.
in the topic I made about testing 'this' I have a zip wich contains two exes that have a diferent dx init code designed to give it a better z buffer, and I included debug code that would alow you to change the fov on the fly, most people like the setting about .25 to .55, I supose setting this as a comand line would not be much more dificult
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
I posted that at like 4:30 am, so I may have been slightly slured.
in the topic I made about testing 'this' I have a zip wich contains two exes that have a diferent dx init code designed to give it a better z buffer, and I included debug code that would alow you to change the fov on the fly, most people like the setting about .25 to .55, I supose setting this as a comand line would not be much more dificult
Awesome - downloading now. What is each EXE for?
-
one is a debug build
-
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/us/images/mods/snipes/fov45.jpg)
That was freakin awesome! That's how an Orion should look!
Now if there was a tbl entry to make it smaller for certain ships (like my crimion should be at 45, but others could be 55...) :D:D:D
:yes: :yes: :yes: :yes: :yes: 5 thumbs up!
-
that fov seems small.
try loading the model up in TS or something and placing the camera that far away and see what it looks like compared to the standard fov.
-
I find that 0.35 - 0.45 is about right in most cases :D
Flipside.
-
That was at 45, because my ship is only 10 meters long. I thought it was appropriate. And what are you talking about?
Edit: Ohh... Ok, I get it... But I doubt it'd change the fov in TS, since zoom is completely edittable in that too
-
Uh, what FOV setting are you giving them, Bobbau, vertical or horizontal?
By the way, someone mentioned that you can change the FOV in games like Unreal and Quake 3. That's true - in the console, the command "fov " works just fine, and if you're really lame, you can bind a key for setting the normal FOV, and one for a smaller FOV to get sniper-zoom with every weapon.
-
Viewer_zoom, I set up a debug code so you can raise it or lower it by .1
-
That view was from 800 meters away! That rawked. I gotta play with that some more, if only it wasn't so... annoying getting into the program
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
if only it wasn't so... annoying getting into the program
At least you can! :(
-
I gotta get this!
...I'm surprised no-one said anything about...:nervous:...
...I'll just download it...and show you later...
*runs off to see what the Gigas looks like with the improved fov*
-
Increasing the sizes mean that the ship would look worse, at least its textures would be too small to be rendered nicely when somebody is close by.
-
and so you need mipmap like stuff running!
mips within mips... or was it plans?
-
Thanks for your tenacity, Sandwich! Kudos! ;7
I have an idea... I'll find some 3DS models of houses, trees, people, and normal everyday stuff that we have a reasonable sense of scale. Then I'll POF them to their proper size and test the view angle to find what looks the most realistic.
Actually I'm too busy right now. Someone else do it.
-
:rolleyes:
-
Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
I have an idea... I'll find some 3DS models of houses, trees, people, and normal everyday stuff that we have a reasonable sense of scale. Then I'll POF them to their proper size and test the view angle to find what looks the most realistic.
Tanks. Definitely tanks. :D
-
that EXE with the changeable FOV has just been updated with a new comand line option '-fov XX' so the line
"fs2_open_z.exe -fov .3 will give you an in game fov of .3"
note with this method you can give it a much more fine tuned fov rather than just moeing it by .1 incraments, you could for example set the fov to something weird like .476198423 if you so wanted
-
The updated EXE along with the launcher has allowed me to see what's been done here, and I have a question. What exactly is changing, the viewpoint zoom factor? Because what I was originally looking for was a change in depth of field (again I refer to the scene in Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo looks along the path and warns everyone to get off the path. There is an excellent example there of a change in depth of field - without the zoom changing). Anyway, that is the kind of view change that will really fix the problem - simply modifying the zoom factor is not completely effective, although the difference even with this is really cool. ;)
Do you know what I mean, or should I see about putting up a video clip of that scene?
-
I dont understand quite...
is it like max payne when in your drugged up and the corridor elongates before you.... kinda like fish eye view with out the major distotion... or something?
-
Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
I dont understand quite...
is it like max payne when in your drugged up and the corridor elongates before you.... kinda like fish eye view with out the major distotion... or something?
in the LotR scene Sandwich is talking about, the FOV change makes Frodo looks like he approches the camera, while the sceneray behind it looks like it's going away from the camera. looks dumb said like that, but it gives a great sense of vertigo.
-
ah that yes I get it now!
-
But is that possible?
-
well you can do it in real life with your hand... so mabey:p
-
I always thought that effect was done by moveing the camera back while zooming or something like that
-
yeah
you can half replicate the idea anyway by putting your hand in front of something then moving your headback and you hand toward your head faster than your head is moving. Your hand will get bigger while the scenery gets smaller. Its not great but it demostrates it I suppose :)
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
I always thought that effect was done by moveing the camera back while zooming or something like that
nah, that would result in the picture to stay about the same, assuming both speeds are equal :)
-
"hand toward your head faster than your head is moving"
:rolleyes:
its a good idea to read all of my post... they might even makesense...:eek:
EDIT: based on that its better to just guess at what im saying!:doubt:
you dont have to read all of my POSTS just the one:nod:
and if they were the same speed it would stay the same but the scenery would just get smaller and thats kinda pointless the moving hand is supposed to replicate the zooming effect.
-
Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
yeah
you can half replicate the idea anyway by putting your hand in front of something then moving your headback and you hand toward your head faster than your head is moving. Your hand will get bigger while the scenery gets smaller. Its not great but it demostrates it I suppose :)
Actually quite close. ;) Anyway, yes, I guess the effect increases the shrinking factor of distant objects while also increasing the apparent size growth of objects coming closer.
Hmm, when I put it that way, I'm not sure that's wat we want at all. :-/
-
:lol: